They stopped and looked around. Even at this nearer view of it the blind gorge appeared to be nothing but a blind.
“What do you say now,” Dick laughed. “Are you satisfied?”
“Not yet,” said Larry. “Take a little time off, if you like, and rest your face and hands while I walk up to the head of this thing.”
“Oh, no; I’m still with you,” was the joshing retort; and together they began an exploration of the pocket.
Even after they had found the astounding outcome the illusion as seen from the opposite side of the river was perfect. A hundred yards from its apparent end they still would have declared that the gulch stopped abruptly against a solid cliff. But upon taking a few steps to the left they found that what seemed to be the end of the pocket was merely a jutting spur of the mountain completely concealing an extension of the gorge which went winding its way beyond, deep into the heart of things. And at the turn into this extension they found another of the new, blue-chalk-marked location stakes; in plain sight, this one, with no attempt having been made to conceal it like those on the other bank of the river.
“I’m It,” Dick acknowledged, laughing again, but at himself this time. “You can put it all over me when it comes down to sheer, unreasonable thoroughness, old scout, I give you right. But how about it now? Do we chase back with the news?”
“Still and again, not yet,” Larry demurred. “That report we’re going to make to Mr. Ackerman oughtn’t to stop short off in the middle of things. Maybe these stakes don’t mean anything but a preliminary survey; the O. C. just sort of feeling the ground over to see what they could do if they wanted to. But taking it the other way round, maybe it’s the real thing—the working lay-out. What if they’ve already been building down sneak-fashion from Burnt Canyon? What if they should happen to be right around the next twist in this crooked gully, ready to make a swift grab for the river crossing and our right-of-way in the canyon?”
Dick groaned in mock despair.
“I see,” he lamented. “You won’t be satisfied until you’ve walked me ten or thirteen miles on the way to Burnt Canyon. All right; let’s go. I’m the goat.”